Sharpshooting

White Buffalo Inc.’s strategic approach to urban deer management is designed to address and avoid the most common cause of failure; an “educated” deer population that is skilled in avoiding management activities.  Well before the first deer is euthanized, we focus on how to engage with the last.  The defining strategic characteristic of every population control effort is the management team’s singular focus on preventing the remaining deer from being educated to avoid humans, even as the population is rapidly reduced. 

An urban deer management team must remove a high percentage of a population, and unfortunately, to keep the population at desirable levels, we must continue management activities on a smaller scale in subsequent years.  It is critical that we maintain the naïveté of the select population, and this naïveté is the most important means of reducing the risk of failure and minimizing long-term costs.  For this standard to be met, the team must possess superior technical ability (e.g., to shoot with precision in suboptimal conditions), field intuition (e.g., to determine whether animals encountered should be engaged), and discipline (e.g., to refrain from engaging if conditions are not conducive).  In summary, the behavioral characteristics of the deer at low density and the ability to manage them in future years will be shaped by events unfolding from the first day of the management activities.

White Buffalo Inc.’s methods are humane and address concerns for animal welfare by following the American Veterinary Medical Association’s stringent guidelines for humane euthanasia of animals (AVMA 2013).  We have spent over 20 years committed to improving both technology and techniques to maximize safety, humaneness, and efficiency for the management of white-tailed deer (i.e., ballistics testing, bullet development, baiting techniques, adaptation of other technologies for use in deer management, including night vision scopes and suppressors).  We have numerous hours of hands-on use and the best available equipment to ensure precise shot placement.  Our commitment ensures the safe use of equipment and humane treatment of the animal.  We have thoroughly tested and selected bullets, in addition to having developed specialized bullets.  As a result of our extensive testing, we have found that no bullet fragments with significant size or inertia exit the target animal, therefore ensuring public safety.  We have extensive experience in both lethally removing and capturing deer in a variety of human-occupied environments without incident.  We have used our discretion in the selection of shooting sites to the satisfaction of both local/state officials and property owners.